Oh, Yuletide. You're always such an interesting time of year. From the endless Frosty and Rudolph songs on the radio, to making gifts for my friends and family, to finding a tree, all the way to the various holidays that we celebrate, it's always a fun time of year.
This year, as I mentioned previously, I am becoming increasingly more and more fed up with the radio's song choices, and have gone to far as to talk about creating my own station of holiday music for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of not playing any songs about magic snowmen or reindeer. I don't dislike the songs completely, but the frequency is really wearing on me.
As usual, I'm busy at work, creating gifts. I always make gifts, and although it takes a while to get it all done (and my out-of-state friends may end up with late gifties, sadly), I love doing it.
Remember the classes that my family and I teach, the ones that started in September? Well, just yesterday was the final day of the semester, and I could not be prouder of all of the students. It was a lot of fun, and while the workload of getting everything prepared for the ten classes we taught at once was admittedly heavy, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. We're already brainstorming for next semester, and it's looking like we'll be teaching a whole pile of new classes, and I'm thrilled.
Life is always busy, and right now is no exception. I'll be surprised if I reach my goal of 52 posts by the end of the year, but let me tell you, I'm going to try my best.
This has been a pretty newsy post, so I'll toss it to you all...if there's still anyone reading this, that is.
What's new in your life?
Now I must go so I can sleep so I can wake up and do more Yule elf things.
Cheers,
Whimsy
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Week Forty-Four: The Face On The Milk Carton
This was written as a project for one of the classes my family and I teach. We did a book report on our least favorite book from the six that we covered in our Banned Book Club. I had great fun with this.
The Face on the Milk Carton
This book tells the story of a teenage girl who finds out that she was kidnapped as a toddler through a series of totally unrealistic coincidences and absurd conjecture. Janie Johnson is our paper-flat heroine, a girl with no apparent interests other than the boy next door and no more character depth than trying not to drink milk because of her mild lactose allergy. One day, while surrounded by her insipid and wildly annoying friends who don’t seem to really know her at all, (judging by the fact that they can happily ignore that Janie is having a complete and total mental breakdown while they cheerily eat their lunches,) Janie finds a photo of herself in a missing children’s ad on the side of a milk carton. She recognizes the photo of herself from the dress that she’s wearing, goes into a tailspin and promptly decides that her loving parents must have stolen her away from her “real” family at a young age, all in less time than it takes her school lunch to get cold.
Here is where the real fun starts for Janie. Not only does she spend ninety percent of the rest of the book flip-flopping between hysteria and numbness, she also acquires a markedly crappy boyfriend named Reeve and fails every single one of her classes, but she also becomes so attached to the milk carton with her face on it, she can’t be without it for more than an hour at a time.
During poor cardboard Janie’s meltdown of self destruction, the strangest part of the book happens. Nobody notices. Her teachers just simply keep on giving her assignments, not one of them stopping to wonder why this formerly brilliant pupil is doing so poorly. Her friends actually get mad at her for being distant, not even noticing that she’s having full-blown panic attacks in front of them. Her supposed “Best Friend” calls her up one night, and when Janie doesn’t want to make small talk about nail polish and boys, gets so upset that she essentially disowns her as a friend.
When Janie finally reaches her breaking point, she skips school with her boyfriend, Reeve, and takes a four hour trip down to New Jersey to attempt to find her family through searching through a phonebook at then stalking them outside their home. Neither Reeve nor Janie seem to see any problem with this, and they wait creepily in the car while Janie’s assumed biological family comes home from school. In this interlude, Reeve appears to just have been waiting for Janie to be done with her parked-car stalking so that he can ask her to go to a motel. Janie turns him down, and they get back in the car to make the four hour drive back home. About halfway back home, without having exchanged more than six words, Reeve turns off the highway, drives into a astonishingly skeezy motel parking lot, and rents a room using his mother’s credit card. Janie, who has not been interested in finding a motel *wink wink*, turns him down yet again and then they get back in the car and drive away, not even bothering to check out. With Janie’s breakdown taking up most of her brain space, is it really the golden opportunity to try to find a motel?
For the rest of the ride, Reeve doesn’t speak to her until they realize they had better get their stories straight for their parents, who are going absolutely insane from wondering where their children have gone, and then shortly after the road trip to New Jersey, he dumps her.
I think now is a good time to pause the manic action of this book and talk briefly about the writing style. For example, the metaphors weighed down the pace of the book like a dumbbell on a folded paper airplane. As a matter of fact, wading through the metaphors was like sloshing through a four foot vat of jelly. Reading the superfluous metaphors made me feel as if I was drowning in the ocean with thousands of paper cuts all over my skin.
When the plot wasn’t being bogged down by the poor word choices, The Face on the Milk Carton felt both intensely melodramatic and breakneck, slowed down and meticulously described in all the wrong places, and then suddenly the writing would take off and sweep over hours or days of time in a sentence or two. There was no plot arch, and the one big plot point of the book was stretched out into an overlong, dazed and poorly paced literary cacophony of confusion.
In short, The Face on the Milk Carton is a novel full of unrealistic coincidences, gaping plot holes, overly complicated metaphors, and a plot that is stretched so thinly it’s nearly at its breaking point. The underdeveloped characters left me without a speck of sympathy for their unrealistic plights, and the ending, while leaving the story open for a sequel , left me apathetic with no real desire to read onward.
The Face on the Milk Carton
This book tells the story of a teenage girl who finds out that she was kidnapped as a toddler through a series of totally unrealistic coincidences and absurd conjecture. Janie Johnson is our paper-flat heroine, a girl with no apparent interests other than the boy next door and no more character depth than trying not to drink milk because of her mild lactose allergy. One day, while surrounded by her insipid and wildly annoying friends who don’t seem to really know her at all, (judging by the fact that they can happily ignore that Janie is having a complete and total mental breakdown while they cheerily eat their lunches,) Janie finds a photo of herself in a missing children’s ad on the side of a milk carton. She recognizes the photo of herself from the dress that she’s wearing, goes into a tailspin and promptly decides that her loving parents must have stolen her away from her “real” family at a young age, all in less time than it takes her school lunch to get cold.
Here is where the real fun starts for Janie. Not only does she spend ninety percent of the rest of the book flip-flopping between hysteria and numbness, she also acquires a markedly crappy boyfriend named Reeve and fails every single one of her classes, but she also becomes so attached to the milk carton with her face on it, she can’t be without it for more than an hour at a time.
During poor cardboard Janie’s meltdown of self destruction, the strangest part of the book happens. Nobody notices. Her teachers just simply keep on giving her assignments, not one of them stopping to wonder why this formerly brilliant pupil is doing so poorly. Her friends actually get mad at her for being distant, not even noticing that she’s having full-blown panic attacks in front of them. Her supposed “Best Friend” calls her up one night, and when Janie doesn’t want to make small talk about nail polish and boys, gets so upset that she essentially disowns her as a friend.
When Janie finally reaches her breaking point, she skips school with her boyfriend, Reeve, and takes a four hour trip down to New Jersey to attempt to find her family through searching through a phonebook at then stalking them outside their home. Neither Reeve nor Janie seem to see any problem with this, and they wait creepily in the car while Janie’s assumed biological family comes home from school. In this interlude, Reeve appears to just have been waiting for Janie to be done with her parked-car stalking so that he can ask her to go to a motel. Janie turns him down, and they get back in the car to make the four hour drive back home. About halfway back home, without having exchanged more than six words, Reeve turns off the highway, drives into a astonishingly skeezy motel parking lot, and rents a room using his mother’s credit card. Janie, who has not been interested in finding a motel *wink wink*, turns him down yet again and then they get back in the car and drive away, not even bothering to check out. With Janie’s breakdown taking up most of her brain space, is it really the golden opportunity to try to find a motel?
For the rest of the ride, Reeve doesn’t speak to her until they realize they had better get their stories straight for their parents, who are going absolutely insane from wondering where their children have gone, and then shortly after the road trip to New Jersey, he dumps her.
I think now is a good time to pause the manic action of this book and talk briefly about the writing style. For example, the metaphors weighed down the pace of the book like a dumbbell on a folded paper airplane. As a matter of fact, wading through the metaphors was like sloshing through a four foot vat of jelly. Reading the superfluous metaphors made me feel as if I was drowning in the ocean with thousands of paper cuts all over my skin.
When the plot wasn’t being bogged down by the poor word choices, The Face on the Milk Carton felt both intensely melodramatic and breakneck, slowed down and meticulously described in all the wrong places, and then suddenly the writing would take off and sweep over hours or days of time in a sentence or two. There was no plot arch, and the one big plot point of the book was stretched out into an overlong, dazed and poorly paced literary cacophony of confusion.
In short, The Face on the Milk Carton is a novel full of unrealistic coincidences, gaping plot holes, overly complicated metaphors, and a plot that is stretched so thinly it’s nearly at its breaking point. The underdeveloped characters left me without a speck of sympathy for their unrealistic plights, and the ending, while leaving the story open for a sequel , left me apathetic with no real desire to read onward.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Week Forty-Three: Out Of Hibernation
Hello, bloggy-types!
Yes, I know, it's been a while. I disappeared during November, but on the bright side, I've written my third novel.
It went better than I'd expected, actually. Especially since I had my busiest November on record, managing to finish 50,000 words has been quite the trip. I had very little idea as to what I wanted to do with my novel this year, and almost everything that I'd planned went straight out the window. I couldn't be happier.
As of now, I'm re-reading it, and to my surprise, there's actually some not-that-bad bits in there, including an argument that I particularly liked. Clearly, I'm going to need a lot of time to edit it into something coherent, but at least it's there. I had a really good time with it this year, and I'm really proud of my little fledgeling book-baby.
With the self-imposed challenge of BOW'11, I've obviously missed a handful of weeks, but that's okay, I think. My goal has been revised to post 52 times this year, so look forward to tons of posts until December 31st. Even though I technically failed the guidelines of this challenge, I don't really feel like it. I've posted roughly forty-three more times than I would have without attempting this mad project, and because of that, I have a window to look back at how I was feeling, what I was doing, and who I was throughout this past year, and in that case, it was totally worth it.
It's the Christmas-Yule season now, the house is decorated, and the holiday music is playing over the radio.
For now, I have to say goodbye. It's time to go get the tree, and we need to find the biggest, fattest tree we can, so I must go.
Look out for Whimsy's triumphant return, as I attempt to write 10 blog posts in three weeks.
Happy holidays!
~Whimsy
Yes, I know, it's been a while. I disappeared during November, but on the bright side, I've written my third novel.
It went better than I'd expected, actually. Especially since I had my busiest November on record, managing to finish 50,000 words has been quite the trip. I had very little idea as to what I wanted to do with my novel this year, and almost everything that I'd planned went straight out the window. I couldn't be happier.
As of now, I'm re-reading it, and to my surprise, there's actually some not-that-bad bits in there, including an argument that I particularly liked. Clearly, I'm going to need a lot of time to edit it into something coherent, but at least it's there. I had a really good time with it this year, and I'm really proud of my little fledgeling book-baby.
With the self-imposed challenge of BOW'11, I've obviously missed a handful of weeks, but that's okay, I think. My goal has been revised to post 52 times this year, so look forward to tons of posts until December 31st. Even though I technically failed the guidelines of this challenge, I don't really feel like it. I've posted roughly forty-three more times than I would have without attempting this mad project, and because of that, I have a window to look back at how I was feeling, what I was doing, and who I was throughout this past year, and in that case, it was totally worth it.
It's the Christmas-Yule season now, the house is decorated, and the holiday music is playing over the radio.
For now, I have to say goodbye. It's time to go get the tree, and we need to find the biggest, fattest tree we can, so I must go.
Look out for Whimsy's triumphant return, as I attempt to write 10 blog posts in three weeks.
Happy holidays!
~Whimsy
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